Assessing Barriers to Entry for Aquatics Employment: Hiring and Retaining Staff.

Barriers to accessibility in aquatics has always been an issue. Systemic barriers like lack of access to affordable swim programs, transportation, lack of reliability, and lack of access to water are a few ways that make it difficult to hire and retain staff. While the lifeguard shortage has been shifting, there are still communities struggling to retain staff. Reducing some of these barriers can help employers staff their pools with quality candidates and retain them for the long term. 

Barriers to employment are defined as institutions, policies, or societal normalities that make it difficult for people to access employment. It can disproportionately affect people of color, LBGBTQIA+ communities, those in lower-income families, women, those with disabilities, and many others. This is important to note, because we know the drowning statistics (Including drowning in rural settings being 1.5x higher than non-rural areas and people of color being 1.5x more likely to drown than their white counterparts), however how do these drowning rates affect employment? 

If people can not swim, how can we expect them to work in a job role where they are preventing drowning? 

What are the barriers to aquatic employment? 

There are several barriers to employment to talk about when it comes to working in aquatics. Gender biased uniform options inadvertently limit the accessibility of the LGBTQIA+ community. Transportation concerns and inflexible hours create problems when young people are relying on bus transport or ride share services that don’t run in parallel to the schedule at the pool. For older adults this might be hours that don’t align with caregiving responsibilities. 

Seasonal and limited career progression can create issues in retaining staff who may see lifeguarding or swim instructing as a part-time job being used just for the summer. They can lead to little future progression or strictly be seasonal employment leading to job loss. Entitled members and residents are becoming a further problem for retention within aquatics. Young hires get treated poorly due to age and yet are expected to perform high stress job duties with little appreciation. Seasoned managers are expected to be belittled over cleanliness, lack of staff, and limited hours with no support. The list of perceived barriers can go on and on, but there are several ways that we can start to lower these barriers. 

How do we lower barriers to employment? 

• Offering free and reduced cost lifeguard training and swimming lessons. This can reduce the income barrier by allowing those who wouldn’t typically have the money to afford a swim lesson or the lifeguarding course be able to attend. 

• Rural Programs. Promoting programs in rural areas that don’t have access to water is a good way to bring in more employees to your area. Recruiting in adjoining counties and combining it with reduced cost programming and transportation initiatives is a great way to bring in people who normally wouldn’t have access to this type of employment. 

• Adaptive partnerships. Hiring with an adaptive lens to be able to offer inclusive employment through other organizations. 

• Cross-training. Cross-Training employees into other jobs, especially at a seasonal pool, can allow employees to have more long-term employment. This will make it easier for employees to commit to a two-three month job if they know they will have employment after Labor Day. 

• 
  

Future Considerations: 

Some things to consider in the future for reduction barrier can include things like a transportation stipend for those relying on public transportation and offering flexible hours to meet that transportation schedule. It can also look like adjusting your uniform policy to make it more gender neutral and inclusive so that everyone feels comfortable. Pipeline programs for transferring seasonal part-time employees to full-time employees and apprenticeship or on-the-job training for other areas within the organization can be a great way to help support adult employees or those who are just graduating college and encouraging them to stay in aquatics long-term. 

Now What? 

Implementing successful employment interventions can take time and practice. It won’t all come at once, but looking at the way we are hiring employees and approaching it with a caring and actionable approach can help make your workplace more diverse and supportive.